Unindo to continue helping SMEs
Unindo to continue helping SMEs
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido)
said that it would continue providing technical assistance to
Indonesia to help empower the country's small and medium
enterprises (SMEs).
The director general of Unido, Carlos Alfredo Magarinos, said
that the assistance, such as the transfer of technology,
knowledge, skill and information, to SMEs was necessary to
improve the quality of local products.
"We are going to expand our mission to help empower the SMEs
in this country, making more people export products to the
international markets," Magarinos told reporters following a one-
day visit to Yogyakarta on Saturday.
During his visit, Magarinos met Yogyakarta Governor
Hamengkubono. He also visited two projects in the province, a
leather processing plant and a shrimp processing plant, which
have been developed with Unido's assistance.
Magarinos added that in the midst of the economic crisis, SMEs
could play a strategic role to absorb many workers, thus helping
to solve the country's unemployment problem. This in turn would
help cut the poverty rate.
According to him, an increase in unemployment would create
serious problems for the country, such as a rising crime rate and
even terrorism.
"Poverty is the greatest risk for terrorism and security so if
we want to remove the problems, the first concern should be to
fight against poverty not just with emergency food aid,"
Magarinos said.
According to government data, the number of unemployed people
in the country is about 40 million.
The ongoing economic crisis, which first hit the country in
mid-1997, has caused many companies to shut down, forcing
millions of people out of work.
Worse still, the number of unemployed is expected to rise as
about 2.5 million job seekers enter the job market every year.
To absorb the huge number of job seekers, the country's
economy needs to grow by about 6 percent 7 percent per year.
The government, however, is only targeting economic growth of
4 percent this year.
SMEs, however, have proven their ability to withstand the
economic crisis and to employ a huge number of people.
Tony Agus Ardi, president director of PT Indokor Indonesia,
has welcomed Unido's assistance.
"Unido's support will help rejuvenate the growth of SMEs in
Yogyakarta province," Tony said.
Yogyakarta currently applies a three-pillar scheme to develop
SMEs involving Governor Hamengkubono representing local
government, Gadjah Mada University and local SMEs.
A pilot project of the scheme is a shrimp farming company
developed by Indokor, which exports its shrimp to the U.S., Japan
and Singapore.
Indokor has establish the 15-hectare intensive shrimp farming
industry on the southern coast of Bantul, which is also being
developed as a research and development center in cooperation
with Gadjah Mada University. The area belongs to the Yogyakarta
royal family.
The integrated shrimp farm is equipped with ultra violet
sterilization and ozone treatment facilities to process shrimp to
meet the stringent quality standards set by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration.
Tony said that the facilities would help local shrimp farmers
and small businesses to meet the quality standards required by
consumers in developed countries.